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I don't understand this argument. There are lots of things people like to do that use a lot of energy that I think are stupid. Like why to people in the West dr

I don't understand this argument. There are lots of things people like to do that use a lot of energy that I think are stupid. Like why to people in the West drive such stupidly large cars? Surely the answer to clean the inputs, not the use case? Trying to control what people can do is just going to make the transition to a clean future impossible, because you will piss lots of people off, and make then enemies. Bitcoin uses a lot of energy because that's it's security model. Trucks use a lot of energy because they are huge. Seems a lot more productive to concentrate on moving electricity to be a clean world input ( say a carbon tax), or move to electric vehicles ( say via tax credits), than to police the actual end usage.

tekstar 5y ago
I also don't drive a really big car, and I think it's stupid as well. So, now we're at two things I don't do because they're bad for the environment.
jcpham2 5y ago
Internet brainwashing “ but it uses electricity” never mind the fact proof of work is on it’s fourth generation of hardware and the price absolutely coo relates with the cost to play the game. We’re opining about a system that finally, for the first time in the history of man, might accurately price the cost of the electricity consumed to power the system. It’s pretty mind boggling but that’s the internet for you.
TheDong 5y ago
Bitcoin is fairly unique in its energy use. Almost every other use of resources will try to be more efficient if it can be. If, for example, it were possible to create steel alloy in a way that took 1% less energy or made less waste (and thus was presumably cheaper at scale), the trucks would use this slightly more efficient steel. On the other hand, Bitcoin relies on wasting a certain monetary value of energy for the security of the network. Its waste is adversarial. If we manage to produce 2x the electricity tomorrow and it becomes significantly cheaper, that just means a 51% attack also became much cheaper so people need to waste even more energy mining. I can't think of any other uses of energy offhand that so actively resist any improvements. I can think of other intentional forms of waste (like dumping toxic waste, "rolling coal", etc), but I can't think of any that are aligned such that making upstream production of a resource more efficient then requires producing even more waste and environmental damage.
- polyomino 5y ago
  And you'd end up building more trucks because of Jevon's paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox. Bitcoin mining does respond to market pressure, if the price goes down, or you wait until the subsidy halves, there will be less incentive to mine.
- cinntaile 5y ago
  > Bitcoin is fairly unique in its energy use. Almost every other use of resources will try to be more efficient if it can be. It's not like energy use in the world has gone down. If it's cheaper or more efficient it will go up or at best stay the same. Bitcoin has made the transition to more efficient ASICs because that increases profits, it just didn't result in less energy use because now you make more profit.
  - burroisolator 5y ago
    If a car can be more efficiently produced, the energy spent producing cars will go up because either more cars will be produced or more features will be added to the car. This is a win for the car consumer. This is very different from Bitcoin where any improvements to the efficiency of mining it (such as transitioning to ASICs) does not lead to a tangible benefit for the Bitcoin user. All major non-ASIC miners will eventually be out-competed out, but the amount of energy wasted will always be correlated to the price of Bitcoin.
    - cinntaile 5y ago
      While not a tangible benefit for them, they do get a more secure network as a result.
      - burroisolator 5y ago
        I don't think they do if you're just referring to how difficult it is to pull off a 51% attack. Assume the status quo is that it costs X to secure 51% of the hash power. If there is a new ASIC that can hash twice as fast with the same energy use, then suddenly it will cost 0.5X to secure 51% of the hash power. But if the price of Bitcoin remains the same, then miners will have an incentive to double their hash power as that was their breakeven point before. And so now you've gone back to the previous status quo. Assuming the attackers have access to the new ASICs, it still costs X to 51% attack the network.
kragen 5y ago
> Bitcoin uses a lot of energy because that's its security model. Trucks use a lot of energy because they are huge. I agree about cleaning the inputs, but I think the parallelism implicit in your phrasing is misleading. Bitcoin uses about 12 GW. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/pdf/transportation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/pdf/transportation.pdf says freight trucks use 23% of global transportation energy use, which seems to be about 110 quads/year (figure 8-2), so that's 25 quads/year or about 850 GW. (And all of that is fossil fuel, while most Bitcoin energy consumption is from renewables.) You could say that an 850-kg rhinoceros has a lot of weight and so does a lot of damage when it runs into things, and a 12-kg poodle also has a lot of weight, but there is a noticeable difference when they accidentally crash into your garage door.
rualca 5y ago
> There are lots of things people like to do that use a lot of energy that I think are stupid. (...) I don't understand what argument you tried to make. Other than a far fetched attempt at whattaboutism... Is bitcoin's astronomical power drain ok because some hypothetical person might drive a big car or goods are shipped with trucks? That does not follow. I mean, aren't there alternatives to bitcoin that have far lower energy needs? Why stick with absurd non-sequiturs to insist that bitcoin's astronomical power drain is somehow ok?

tekstar 5y ago

I also don't drive a really big car, and I think it's stupid as well. So, now we're at two things I don't do because they're bad for the environment.

jcpham2 5y ago

Internet brainwashing “ but it uses electricity” never mind the fact proof of work is on it’s fourth generation of hardware and the price absolutely coo relates with the cost to play the game. We’re opining about a system that finally, for the first time in the history of man, might accurately price the cost of the electricity consumed to power the system. It’s pretty mind boggling but that’s the internet for you.

TheDong 5y ago

Bitcoin is fairly unique in its energy use. Almost every other use of resources will try to be more efficient if it can be. If, for example, it were possible to create steel alloy in a way that took 1% less energy or made less waste (and thus was presumably cheaper at scale), the trucks would use this slightly more efficient steel. On the other hand, Bitcoin relies on wasting a certain monetary value of energy for the security of the network. Its waste is adversarial. If we manage to produce 2x the electricity tomorrow and it becomes significantly cheaper, that just means a 51% attack also became much cheaper so people need to waste even more energy mining. I can't think of any other uses of energy offhand that so actively resist any improvements. I can think of other intentional forms of waste (like dumping toxic waste, "rolling coal", etc), but I can't think of any that are aligned such that making upstream production of a resource more efficient then requires producing even more waste and environmental damage.

polyomino 5y ago
And you'd end up building more trucks because of Jevon's paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox. Bitcoin mining does respond to market pressure, if the price goes down, or you wait until the subsidy halves, there will be less incentive to mine.
cinntaile 5y ago
> Bitcoin is fairly unique in its energy use. Almost every other use of resources will try to be more efficient if it can be. It's not like energy use in the world has gone down. If it's cheaper or more efficient it will go up or at best stay the same. Bitcoin has made the transition to more efficient ASICs because that increases profits, it just didn't result in less energy use because now you make more profit.
- burroisolator 5y ago
  If a car can be more efficiently produced, the energy spent producing cars will go up because either more cars will be produced or more features will be added to the car. This is a win for the car consumer. This is very different from Bitcoin where any improvements to the efficiency of mining it (such as transitioning to ASICs) does not lead to a tangible benefit for the Bitcoin user. All major non-ASIC miners will eventually be out-competed out, but the amount of energy wasted will always be correlated to the price of Bitcoin.
  - cinntaile 5y ago
    While not a tangible benefit for them, they do get a more secure network as a result.
    - burroisolator 5y ago
      I don't think they do if you're just referring to how difficult it is to pull off a 51% attack. Assume the status quo is that it costs X to secure 51% of the hash power. If there is a new ASIC that can hash twice as fast with the same energy use, then suddenly it will cost 0.5X to secure 51% of the hash power. But if the price of Bitcoin remains the same, then miners will have an incentive to double their hash power as that was their breakeven point before. And so now you've gone back to the previous status quo. Assuming the attackers have access to the new ASICs, it still costs X to 51% attack the network.

kragen 5y ago

> Bitcoin uses a lot of energy because that's its security model. Trucks use a lot of energy because they are huge. I agree about cleaning the inputs, but I think the parallelism implicit in your phrasing is misleading. Bitcoin uses about 12 GW. https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/pdf/transportation.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/pdf/transportation.pdf says freight trucks use 23% of global transportation energy use, which seems to be about 110 quads/year (figure 8-2), so that's 25 quads/year or about 850 GW. (And all of that is fossil fuel, while most Bitcoin energy consumption is from renewables.) You could say that an 850-kg rhinoceros has a lot of weight and so does a lot of damage when it runs into things, and a 12-kg poodle also has a lot of weight, but there is a noticeable difference when they accidentally crash into your garage door.

rualca 5y ago

> There are lots of things people like to do that use a lot of energy that I think are stupid. (...) I don't understand what argument you tried to make. Other than a far fetched attempt at whattaboutism... Is bitcoin's astronomical power drain ok because some hypothetical person might drive a big car or goods are shipped with trucks? That does not follow. I mean, aren't there alternatives to bitcoin that have far lower energy needs? Why stick with absurd non-sequiturs to insist that bitcoin's astronomical power drain is somehow ok?